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My big issue, and friction generator is that Linux - as a desktop - is always a year or more behind consumer hardware, and it unfortunately perpetually struggle

My big issue, and friction generator is that Linux - as a desktop - is always a year or more behind consumer hardware, and it unfortunately perpetually struggles with drivers. Last time I tried Linux, driver support for my new graphics card was poor, my multi-monitor displayport setup was unsupported, DPI scaling - despite even Windows supporting it well for the previous 5 years - was quite bad (and non-integer scaling especially so). Even my CPU simply didn't work without some custom boot args. So when it comes to "just works", the year of the linux desktop is here if your hardware is at least 2 years old. There's nothing wrong with 2-year-old hardware, but whenever I get a new computer, I install Windows and it just works, rarely do I ever have a good enough reason to switch to Linux given the effort involved.

ISV_Damocles 4y ago
Sorry you've been unlucky, but I've bought brand new Dell and Lenovo laptops and slapped Fedora on them and they just worked with no driver BS involved. Literally did this just a few months ago. Ubuntu/Debian tend to take longer to support brand new hardware because they're more conservative with kernel updates, but you can also just use the System76 PPA to get a super-recent kernel on Ubuntu. But faster-paced or rolling distros like Fedora or Manjaro are best for that kind of thing. I haven't had a single GPU-related issue, AMD or nVidia, for about a decade, if you're willing to go with non-free drivers.
- bmitc 4y ago
  I think your experience is the outlier and not that the other person was "unlucky". Screen sharing is not working on a "mobile desktop" Thinkpad laptop with Red Hat Linux, a paid Linux distribution no less, freshly installed due to poor communication between several screen sharing apps and drivers or just poor drivers. Outlook is not available for Linux. And the least keeps on going. > I haven't had a single GPU-related issue, AMD or nVidia, for about a decade While I might be off-base, I would wager that you have probably forgotten and not noticed the amount of times you have debugged these things and other driver-related issues.
  - ISV_Damocles 4y ago
    No, I hate debugging on personal machines. I really haven't had GPU driver issues for 10 years on any of my Linux machines, and it's a pretty eclectic mix of Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro, and now one Steam Deck on SteamOS.

ISV_Damocles 4y ago

Sorry you've been unlucky, but I've bought brand new Dell and Lenovo laptops and slapped Fedora on them and they just worked with no driver BS involved. Literally did this just a few months ago. Ubuntu/Debian tend to take longer to support brand new hardware because they're more conservative with kernel updates, but you can also just use the System76 PPA to get a super-recent kernel on Ubuntu. But faster-paced or rolling distros like Fedora or Manjaro are best for that kind of thing. I haven't had a single GPU-related issue, AMD or nVidia, for about a decade, if you're willing to go with non-free drivers.

bmitc 4y ago
I think your experience is the outlier and not that the other person was "unlucky". Screen sharing is not working on a "mobile desktop" Thinkpad laptop with Red Hat Linux, a paid Linux distribution no less, freshly installed due to poor communication between several screen sharing apps and drivers or just poor drivers. Outlook is not available for Linux. And the least keeps on going. > I haven't had a single GPU-related issue, AMD or nVidia, for about a decade While I might be off-base, I would wager that you have probably forgotten and not noticed the amount of times you have debugged these things and other driver-related issues.
- ISV_Damocles 4y ago
  No, I hate debugging on personal machines. I really haven't had GPU driver issues for 10 years on any of my Linux machines, and it's a pretty eclectic mix of Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro, and now one Steam Deck on SteamOS.